Alias: Complete 5th Season
A solid but not perfect end to a great series
Tags: Alias Categories: DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Brian Arnold on Nov 28th, 2006
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Before his work on Mission Impossible III and Lost, JJ Abrams really cut his dramatic teeth on Alias. The fifth season was shot while his attention was split to those other projects, and some would say it shows. Alias is a series that’s well known for its many plot threads, and how bizarrely they can twist and turn and intersect, which makes it an ideal candidate for watching on DVD. Somehow, most of the plots all got tied up in this season. Within just the first episode, one of the major characters dies and two new ones are introduced. I won’t go into detail on the storyline here, as we’re here more to talk about what the DVD offers. If you’d like more detail as to the events in the fifth and final season, the information is all over the net on various fan sites and Wikipedia.
The final season of Alias consists of seventeen episodes, presented on four discs, with five episodes to each of the first three discs, and the final two, along with bonus features, are put onto the fourth disc. Compared to the rest of the sets of Alias, it feels a bit weak. It is true that there are less episodes to the final season (every prior season was 22 episodes), but the shows are packed a bit more densely this time around, and if you own the prior sets, it might feel kind of cheaper in that regard. All episodes are presented in anamorphic widescreen at a 1.78:1 ratio, and generally look pretty decent, although the quality of the original HD broadcasts seemed a bit higher.
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Four of the episodes (Prophet Five, Bob, The Horizon and There Is Only One Sydney Bristow) contain cast and crew commentaries. If you are an absolute die-hard fan of the series with a poster of Jennifer Garner on your wall, you might enjoy the commentary — maybe. Nothing said in any of the commentaries really feels like it has much worth to it, and you’d be better off generally just focusing on and enjoying the episodes rather than listen to fairly light and generic blather. Some DVDs offer great commentary that really gives you insight into what you’re watching, but this DVD set is not one of them.
The other bonuses are fairly decent, and if you’re a moderate fan of the series, are probably worth the entry price into the set. A list of them, along with thoughts, follows.
“Celebrating 100 Episodes” is a small featurette on the 100th episode, which occurred during this season (near the end, too, as there were only 105 episodes). It’s amusing to see the some of the challenge of the episode, as it was one of the more elaborate shows during the entire run of the series, although most of the time is spent talking to and watching the cast and crew eat some cake and drink some wine in the APO headquarters. As a fan of the series, I enjoyed it if but for no other reason just to see these people out of character and having fun.
“The Legend of Rambaldi” starts off as a documentary about Rambaldi, which had me excited at first. Within the first minute or so, it segues into a discussion of the creation of the Rambaldi myths and artifacts, talking a little bit about the evolution of the story and of the props. I was a little more impressed when I thought it would be an actual documentary on the life of Milo Rambaldi, which would have been a fun addition to the storyline, but it was still interesting to see what went into some of the props.
“Heightening the Drama: The Music of Alias” is a fairly standard behind-the-scenes of the music of Alias. That being said, the music of the show was always one of the highlights, so it was interesting to see and hear a bit of the composition of the episodes. I’m a band geek, and enjoy both classical and techno music, so the discussion of the evolution of the soundtrack of Alias was enjoyable to me, but for people who aren’t really into music, this bonus won’t offer much.
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“The New Recruit: On Set with Rachel Nichols” is a feature that serves as a deeper introduction to Rachel Nichols, who plays Rachel Gibson in this final season. It’s very obvious that a good portion of this bonus was shot with a cheap digital camera. The production quality on this bonus piece is lower than the rest, and it gives it a feel like it was almost an afterthought, pushed in as filler to give the set a bit more punch. It’s interesting in its own right, but as the character didn’t get nearly as developed as most of the others, it isn’t as enjoyable as it might have been. There’s also a hidden easter egg bonus which does an even shorter feature of Balthazar Getty, who played the other main new protagonist in season five, the brooding Thomas Grace. Again, it would have been more interesting had this character gotten more fleshed out with other seasons.
“The Bloopers of Alias” starts off as a re-enactment of J.J. Abrams calling Jennifer Garner and pitching the series to her six years ago. As she makes requests for the show, they intersperse bloopers and shots that demonstrate how none of these “requests” were fulfilled, such as hair styles being consistent, no major wardrobe changes, high-quality theatrical levels of acting, and so on. The skit re-enactment portions get a little old quickly, but the bloopers and shots themselves are really quite amusing. It seems that no matter what the series or show, blooper reels are always amusing, and this one is no different. Of all of the bonuses, it’s probably the best on the set.
As mentioned previously, one of the easter eggs is a miniature feature on Balthazar Getty. The other easter egg bonus is a short montage of tons of the cast and crew (mostly crew) of Alias waving goodbye to the camera, set to music with no vocal track. If the Balthazar Getty bonus felt like fluff, this is fluff on top of the fluff. If you’re searching for easter eggs and run across this one, don’t waste your time watching it, unless you like seeing silent people mouth “Goodbye” as they wave at a camera.
On the whole, the DVD set for the final season seems fitting, as much like the show itself, it’s not as strong as the prior seasons, but is still respectable and enjoyable. If you’re a fan of the series and have been collecting the sets as they’ve been released, you owe it to yourself to pick up the final one, just to complete the set. If you don’t have any yet, or maybe just one or two so far, you’d be better off skipping this one and picking up the limited edition complete works Alias set, which includes everything here.
| What Works | Score |
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+ Decent quality production and presentation of the episodes + Bloopers, music, and Rambaldi bonuses are quite enjoyable + Seeing Ron Rifkin out of character is very amusing |
7.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
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- Having a third less discs than prior sets makes it feel a little lower in value - Feels lacking in number of bonuses - The bonuses that are there are a fairly mixed bag of quality |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| If you're a fan of the series, pick it up, or at least rent it, and relive the end of one of the better shows in recent years. If you're not a fan, go back to season 1 and start it up. | |
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Tags: Alias
Posted by Brian Arnold on Nov 28th, 2006 and is filed under DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
